College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Forestry

Overview

Training in the Responsible Conduct of Research is essential in the preparation of future scholars and professionals. An understanding of the issues concerning the conduct of research in an increasingly complex world has become critical in successfully navigating the research landscape. This document summarizes the Department of Forestry’s policies and procedures on training in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). This policy was developed to comply with university requirements. The plan below represents the minimum that all Forestry graduate students must complete. Be advised that there may be additional training required for students supported by NIH, NSF or USDA grants – the PI (major professor) is responsible for ensuring that their funded students fulfill the RCR training requirements of their grants. Also note that students engaged in research involving human subjects or animal use must complete the Michigan State University training modules for those subjects before submitting IRB or IACUC approvals. Again, it is the responsibility of the advisor to ensure that their graduate students complete necessary human subjects or animal use training.

All graduate professional, master’s and doctoral students will complete:

1.) All new graduate and graduate professional students will complete 4 CITI online modules within the first year of enrollment in their program: Completion of this requirement will be tracked in SABA

• Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research
• Authorship
• Data Management
• Research Misconduct 

2.) Discussion-Based Training

All graduate and graduate professional students must complete a minimum of 6 hours of discussion-based training prior to receiving their degrees. These hours can be completed at any point in the graduate program, including during the first 2 years (e.g., as part of a course), or as part of the ongoing training requirement (for doctoral students, described below). Doctoral students must complete 6 hours of training before they reach candidate status. The content of this training will be determined by the student’s major professor, and a plan for meeting this requirement will be documented in the student’s first Annual Progress Report.  Note that sessions of the FOR 802 seminar devoted to RCR and/or RCR workshops offered by the Graduate School can be used to complete the requirement for discussion-based training. For master’s Plan A and PhD students’ completion of this requirement will be recorded by the department in GradInfo as “Initial” training.

In addition to 1 and 2 above, master’s plan A and doctoral students will complete:

3.) Year 2

Within the first 2 years of enrollment in their program, master’s plan A and doctoral students will complete 3 additional MSU online training modules, to be selected from the following list. Specific modules that are most relevant for the student will be determined by the major professor and documented in the student’s first Annual Progress Report. Completion of this requirement will be tracked in SABA. 

• CITI Collaborative Research
• CITI Conflicts of Interest
• CITI Data Management
• CITI Financial Responsibility
• CITI Mentoring
• CITI Peer Review

In addition to 1, 2 and 3 above, doctoral students will complete:

4) Annual Refresher Training

Starting in year 3, all doctoral students must complete 3 hours of annual refresher training; this can include discussion-based training, graduate school workshops or additional online modules beyond the 7 required in basic training. The specifics of this will be determined by the major professor to best meet the needs of the student. A plan for this training in the next year will be developed and document in each student’s Annual Progress Report beginning in Year 2 of their program. Completion of this requirement will be recorded by the department in GradInfo as “Annual” training.

More details can be found here https://grad.msu.edu/researchintegrity.

Download PDF